A research publication of the Hamovitch Center for Science in the Human Services at the USC School of Social Work

Hamovitch PIStudy helps kids by helping moms

4USC School of Social Work maintains strong presence at

annual social work conference

Professor honored with lifetime achievement award from national

social work organization5 New book offers practical tools

for working with communities and social service agencies 8

MOTHERS | continued on page 10

Ferol Mennen, an associate professor with the USC School of Social Work, will use a new $2.5 million grant from the Administration for Children and Families to test a prom-ising approach to alleviate that depression as a strategy to improve the lives of both mother and child.“There are many clearly estab-

lished negative outcomes for

Depression affects more than half of all mothers in Early Head Start programs, impairing their

parenting abilities and increasing the vulnerability of their children to

poor school and life outcomes.

Spring 2014

kids who have depressed moms,” Mennen said. “Intervening in the mother’s depression should improve her depression and make her more motivated to seek employment and improve her health, but we also think it will improve child outcomes.”

Mennen will work in concert with Children’s Institute to test a group therapy approach

2

the local Chinese community and estab-lishing herself as the matriarch of the family.“In a profound way, it’s led me to a very

deep interest in crisis intervention and disaster response and recovery,” Wong said.

“Out of this terrible life crisis, in which she had been lost to her parents and sold because they were in terrible poverty, she came to be a very joyful person. Those early losses weren’t predictive of her life to come.”

Inspired by her grand-mother’s resilience, Wong pursued a career in mental health and recovery from trauma, ultimately becoming an internation-ally known expert who has been called to the scenes of numerous national and international disasters, including the terrorist attacks in Oklahoma and New York cities, school shootings in Columbine and Newtown, earth-quakes in Japan and China, and the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Before assuming her current role with the USC School of Social Work as a clinical professor and asso-ciate dean of field education, she led crisis response and recovery for Los Angeles Unified School District and helped develop a popular evidence-based program to relieve post-traumatic stress, depres-sion, and anxiety among children traumatized by violence and bullying.

In addition to her grandmother’s influ-ence, Wong traces much of her career suc-cess to her family’s strong Christian faith and the values of stewardship and altruism emphasized by her parents.“I had to think not about myself but what

I could do for others,” she said.Interested in social work from the start,

Wong got a summer job in Los Angeles with

Professor inspired by personal experiences to help those in crisis

The USC School of Social Work is known as a national and international leader in creating vibrant scholarly environments. Its research infrastructure and culture, formally organized as the Hamovitch Center for Science in the Human Services, emphasize its activities as “directed toward basic and applied research relevant to the improvement of human services to clients and to the dissemination of research findings.” The school ’s research outcomes and skills are transferred to communities, be they local, national, or international, as a result of its focus on the translation of evidence to the benefit of vulnerable populations.

The featured article of this issue highlights our faculty’s many contributions to alleviate suffering and promote well-being. This mind-set is exemplified by major efforts to reduce and control violence in school environments, as well as the school ’s recent humanitarian mission to help victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, the deadliest natural disaster in the nation’s history.

Another vehicle of dissemination of research-driven evidence, skills, and models is the scholarly publication of journals. The Hamovitch Center is home to seven such journals, all of which have the common denominator of being edited and published by faculty members affiliated with the center. In this issue we are proud to highlight the center’s journal holdings.

From the Director

Haluk Soydan, PhDDirector of the Hamovitch Center

Vol. 4, Issue 1Spring 2014

DeanMarilyn Flynn

EditorEric Lindberg

Staff WriterCharli Engelhorn

Hamovitch PI is a

research newsletter

published quarterly

by the Hamovitch

Center for Science in

the Human Services

at the USC School of

Social Work. Unless

otherwise noted,

all articles may be

reprinted without

permission if credited

to Hamovitch PI, USC

School of Social Work.

Front page photo

by John Livzey.

Send questions

or comments to

elindber@usc.edu

In the sweltering summer heat of California’s Central Valley, with the low throb of a swamp cooler rumbling through the frame of her grandmother’s Victorian house, Marleen Wong learned a secret that would change the course of her life.

As the eldest grandchild, she had been her grandmother’s confidant from a young age, helping her navigate Fresno’s public transit system and translating from Cantonese to English and back again during errands into the city. Now she sat at the kitchen table, just 12 years old, listening as her grand-mother described being sold into servitude as a child in Macau.“When she was 5 years old,

a rich couple came to her home,” Wong said. “Her mother pushed her toward these people and said, ‘This will be your mother and father now.’ She looked at her and didn’t understand. She never saw her mother again.”

Brought to San Francisco just before the earthquake of 1906, her grandmother helped look after the cou-ple’s young children despite being one herself. One day, the father was killed in the crossfire of a gang shootout in Chinatown.“She was treated differ-

ently after that,” Wong said. “The children she was helping raise, the mother of the family began to understand what it was like to be an orphan, to be alone.”

At 17, her grandmother was released from servitude and placed in an arranged mar-riage with a man 20 years her senior. The new couple set down roots in Fresno and opened a successful wholesale food business.

Wong’s grandmother, despite the trauma and chaos of her childhood, found peace in her new home, cultivating strong ties with

“That’s the beauty of social work. As you get older, you have more

and more professional and life experiences that are integrated

and that help you gain some sense of what is needed to improve the

lives of others.”

Marleen Wong

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Clinical professor Marleen Wong met with nuns in Tacloban, Philippines, during recovery efforts following Typhoon Haiyan.

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“It’s not a death sentence to a happy life,” she said. “There are always turns in the road where people can intervene. There are still things we can do to make a difference.”

After completing her degree at USC in 1971, Wong worked in outpatient and inpatient psychiatry at Saint John’s Hospital for several years before joining the Los Angeles Unified School District as a psychiatric social worker. She was content to remain in that role until the first big crisis of her tenure, a shooting at 49th Street Elementary School.

As children left their class-rooms and spilled onto the play-ground one afternoon in 1984, a 28-year-old man who lived across the street opened fire from a bay window with a high-powered rifle and two shotguns.

A 10-year-old girl died on the scene, a 24-year-old man jogging nearby was hit by gun-fire and died several months later, and a dozen other people

the Department of Public Social Services, where her aunt worked as deputy director. In the eve-nings after work, they would attend community organizing meetings held in the wake of President Lyndon Johnson’s declaration of a war on poverty.

As an intake staff member that summer, Wong learned to listen to people’s problems and began to focus on elimi-nating her personal biases. She relied on the lessons taught by her grandmother, who served as the unofficial social worker for many in the Chinese com-munity in Fresno. She recalled days spent playing outside and hearing laughter and weeping from the windows of her grandmother’s home.“Because she was open, which

was very different from most Chinese women of her gen-eration, they came to talk about their problems,” Wong said. “She always told me to watch people. Listen to them and observe them, because there is so much to learn. That is a real strength of social work, to observe how people conduct themselves.”

Despite the clear effect of her grandmother on Wong’s professional path, including her decision to pursue a bachelor’s degree in social work from California State University, Fresno, and a master’s degree in social work at USC, she didn’t fully recognize that personal influence until her mid-20s, when someone brought up a story about a family in crisis and Wong burst into tears.“It just became clear to me.

It was in my DNA,” she said. “This is what I had to do, and it wasn’t because I was a victim. It was always about her.”

Many young children experi-ence traumatic events like her grandmother, she said, arguing that it is important to recog-nize that those risk factors don’t necessarily have to lead to poor outcomes in adulthood.

were injured. The perpetrator killed himself as police officers stormed the house.“It was one of the first school

shootings that received big media attention,” Wong said.

“We knew about counseling but we didn’t know about trauma counseling. The word trauma had never been applied to chil-dren before.”

Coupled with the sharp uptick in gang violence in Los Angeles in the 80s, the shooting spurred district officials to establish a crisis response team. Wong vol-unteered to help develop the program, again driven by a sense of duty and conscience.“I don’t know that I wanted to

be a part of it, but I felt like I had to be a part of it,” she said.

“Kids just didn’t come back to school. Teachers were trauma-tized. They were in shock and fear. It had always been assumed that school was a safe place.”

As a result of the efforts of Wong and her colleagues, the district became the first in the

nation to have a districtwide crisis response and recovery team. After the Los Angeles riots of 1992, school leaders asked Wong to lead the mental health and trauma recovery process for all schools.

Although no campus had been physically damaged, racial and ethnic tensions had flared up among teachers and school employees. Wong spent the fol-lowing summer leading group sessions and guiding conversa-tions about their personal and professional experiences in an effort to bring them together.“They all saw things from a

different perspective,” she said. “I had to be the person who created a safe environment for people to talk.”

One particularly memorable discussion centered on a white firefighter who had been shot in the face while battling a blaze during the rioting. Some teachers lamented the fact that he had been injured while trying

TRAUMA | continued on page 11

4Keeping score

Many state, local, and national orga-nizations have compiled publicly available data from sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau to produce health scorecards or rankings that seek to offer meaningful information about the health of different communities.

In developing these scorecards, questions arise about the precise relationship between commonly used community-level indi-cators such as the total number of health care facilities in a particular community and health outcomes for members of that community. Even less is known about the relationship between those indicators and health outcomes among specific segments of the population such as older adults in the community.

The USC Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging at the USC School of Social Work is currently leading a pilot project to study the potential connections between factors such as air quality and the health of older adults in a specific neighborhood.

Donald Lloyd, a research associate pro-fessor at the USC Roybal Institute who is the principal investigator for the study, hopes his work will inform the develop-ment of improved scorecards that provide more accurate insights about the well-being of older adult populations in areas like Los Angeles County.“We hope the study will make scorecards

more powerful tools for public health plan-ning and interventions, and we hope it will inform the design of future studies of health and place,” Lloyd said.

Supported by a subaward from the National Institute on Aging through the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health, the study aims to move beyond practical concerns and instinctual biases that can influence the selection of variables for scorecards.“This is a step toward making a more

rational, evidence-based choice of what indicators to use to compare places and health capacity,” Lloyd said. “Instead of choosing measures intuitively or because they’ve been used before, we’re evaluating the usefulness of these various measures for indicating community health by com-paring them directly with the health of

SCORECARDS | continued on page 5

School strengthens presence at annual confab

Among the highlights of the USC School of Social Work’s strong presence at the 18th Annual Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) conference this year were more than 25 presentations by students in the school’s PhD program, an invited symposium featuring professors Michalle Mor Barak and John Brekke, and a doctoral student panel discussion that included assistant professor Tamika Gilreath“The Society for Social Work and Research

holds the profession’s most important annual research conference and is the venue for the cultivation of emerging scholars, cutting-edge research topics, and research networks,” said Dean Marilyn Flynn. “The extent of our presence is a public reflection of our commitment to social work science and scholarship—a hallmark of our school.”

During the four-day conference, attendees had the opportunity to par-ticipate in many of the 600 original symposia, round-tables, workshops, papers, and posters, as well as interact with social work scholars and profes-sionals from around the country.

Mor Barak, who is the Lenore Stein-Wood and William S. Wood Professor in Social Work and Business in a Global

Society, joined Brekke, the Frances G. Larson Professor of Social Work Research, to discuss the future of social work doc-toral education and the next generation of scholars and researchers.

Their presentation centered on their joint paper titled “Social Work Science and Identity Formation for Doctoral Scholars within Intellectual Community,” a key topic of discussion at the Islandwood Roundtable on Social Work Science held last summer in Seattle, Washington.

Brekke and Mor Barak proposed that social work is an integrative scientific disci-pline, and that the development of an iden-tity as a scientist and creation of intellectual communities are intricately linked to the future transformation of doctoral educa-tion to fully prepare the students for pro-fessorships or other roles in academia. The concept is innovative in the field, and Mor Barak said the response from the attendees

was positive.“There was a lively

discussion after our presentation from the learned audience of col-leagues interested in the topic,” said Mor Barak. “Most attendees thought

this [concept] is a much needed direction for doctoral education, and they liked the ideas of social work as an integrative science,

CONFERENCE | continued on page 8

USC School of Social Work faculty members and students attended the Society for Social Work and Research conference.

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By Vincent Lim

More than 25 doctoral students from the USC School of Social Work presented at the annual

meeting of the Society for Social Work and Research this year.

5people living in those communities.”

Sometimes conclusions are drawn by assuming that there is a direct link between factors such as the types of food establish-ments in a community and particular health consequences like cardiovascular disease, when the explanation for this statistical association is frequently more complex.

The study will bring together commu-nity-level data from sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau and health data about individuals from sources like the California Health Interview Survey to determine how well certain indicators represent the health of aging adults.

The USC Roybal Institute is uniquely positioned to engage in this work because its mission is to advance research whose goal is to enhance optimal aging for persons in minority and low-income communities.“It is critical to see the implications of our

research for practice,” said William Vega, provost professor, executive director of the USC Roybal Institute, and a coinvestigator on the study. “We hope the results of our work can be shared with direct service pro-viders and will inform how they evaluate population health and the needs of those who they serve.”

Study leaders also hope to contribute to research as well as practice.“Some people in academic research set-

tings aren’t interested in doing applied research,” Lloyd said. “At the same time, many people out in the field such as health systems planners and policy makers don’t necessarily have the depth of research experience to make appropriate judgments about what will be best indicators to use for their populations of interest.”

Study data will be drawn from Los Angeles County, a densely populated part of the country that is well suited for the implementation of place-based interven-tions such as the opening of a community health center.“The project responds to the growing rec-

ognition—particularly in the context of a rapidly changing American health care landscape—that a valid and consistently measured system of population health indi-cators is necessary to maximize public health investments,” Lloyd said. “It is designed to be locally relevant and responsive to the local stakeholder priorities and to capitalize on their intimate knowledge of the real world of health care of the aged.” t

SCORECARDS | from page 4Professor receives lifetime achievement honor

Returning to the USC School of Social Work after a stint as the inaugural director of the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research, Kathleen Ell had a burning desire to pursue a rigorous research career.

During a meeting with Dean Marilyn Flynn, she struck a deal: If she wasn’t fully funded by a well-regarded federal agency in three years, she would go back to teaching early morning classes. Despite having never served as principal investigator on a research project, Ell fought through dozens of rejection letters and successfully estab-lished herself as a pioneering researcher on issues such as quality of life, chronic illness, depression, and access to health care.“If there was ever a person who deserved

an opportunity to express her passion, it was Kathy,” Flynn said during a recent ceremony to honor Ell with the Knee/Wittman Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). “She does honor to the Knee/Wittman Award in the impact she has had on vulnerable populations. She has never stopped, she has never rested.”

The award, one of the highest honors bestowed by the organization, recognizes individuals who have made exemplary con-tributions to the field of health and mental health research and practice. As the Ernest P. Larson Professor of Health, Ethnicity, and Poverty, Ell has secured more than $17 million in federal funding during the past

20 years to explore medical, psychological, and social factors that affect the health and well-being of low-income individuals.“You’ve made sure that your research was

focused on the most vulnerable populations, the most underserved populations, so you could figure out how to best serve those who needed the most help,” said Angelo McClain, CEO of NASW and president of the NASW Foundation.

He lauded Ell’s groundbreaking clinical research on cancer screening, major depres-sion, psychological distress, and morbidity and mortality, as well as her pursuit of interdisciplinary partnerships and a recent focus on issues faced by military service members, veterans, and their families.“It is very important to NASW that we are

able to be here to give you this honor and to give you the proper due respect that your distinguished career merits,” McClain said.

After accepting the award, Ell described several moments that inspired her lifelong commitment to improving the lives of people in need. As a young girl, she over-heard a group of church leaders discussing strategies to get rid of a new minister who wanted to open the congregation to blacks. She promptly marched into the room and reprimanded the board of elders, two pas-tors, and her father, who served as president of the congregation.

As a recent college graduate and newly minted social work assistant at Barnes

ELL | continued on page 9

Angelo McClain and Dean Marilyn Flynn flank Knee/Wittman Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Kathleen Ell.

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Retaining talent

Gretchen Heidemann had a number of major events occur during summer 2013.

Not only did the USC School of Social Work postdoctoral research associate finish her dissertation, receive her doctorate degree, and get married, but she also received an invitation to work with Dr. Bruce Jansson, the school’s Margaret W. Driscoll/Louise M. Clevenger Professor of Social Policy and Administration, on his federally funded health advocacy research project.

Jansson, who was instrumental in recruiting Heidemann to the doctoral pro-gram, donated $38,000 to fund her new position. In October 2012, Jansson received a federal award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to conduct a pilot project titled Improving Healthcare Outcomes through Advocacy. He credits Heidemann for helping secure the award by discovering information per-tinent to the funding and for helping to write the project proposal.

However, Heidemann did not partici-pate in the first year of the research project because she wanted to focus on completing her studies and other life events.“Last spring, I was busy writing my dis-

sertation and planning my wedding,” said Heidemann, who was married two days after the conferment of her doctorate.

HEIDEMANN | continued on page 7

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Journal holdings bolster school’s visibility

JOURNALS | continued on page 7

As the home of seven scholarly publications specializing in social work and related fields, the USC School of Social Work has derived many benefits from its journal holdings, from increasing the school’s academic reputation to generating a wealth of expertise on the vagaries of the publication process.

In turn, the journals are aided by the knowledge and abilities of leading researchers and scholars who serve as edi-tors of these publications, as well as administrative support provided by the school to three of the journals. Paul Maiden, vice dean of academic and student affairs, sees many advantages to hosting the academic publications.“Giving the journals

a home is good for the school in terms of vis-ibility and it’s good for the journal editors who are here because it gives them support,” said Maiden, who has served as editor of the Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health for more than a decade. “We’re very fortunate to have a dean who supports this the way she does.”“It’s quite a considerable amount of time

and effort,” said Haluk Soydan, asso-ciate dean of research and director of the

Hamovitch Center for Science in the Human Services. “I don’t know of any other school of social work that has as many jour-nals. That’s a considerable investment.”

As journal editors, members of the faculty have the ability to shape the content and direction of the publications, he noted, bol-stering their influence in the profession and bringing increased attention and promi-nence to the USC School of Social Work.

Soydan serves as European editor for the International Journal of Social Welfare, U.S. editor of the Journal of Social Work, and an editorial board member of Oxford Bibliographies Online: Social Work. The school is also home to Home Health Care Services Quarterly, the Journal of HIV/AIDS & Social Services, and Military Behavioral Health.

In addition to enhancing the school’s reputation, Soydan said hosting the journals offers numerous opportunities for students, postdoctoral scholars, and research faculty members to glean knowledge about the publication process.

“It collectively contributes to a scholarly environment in which information and knowledge and skills about publishing in

“As editors, our faculty members influence

the scholarly direction of these international and national journals, which as a collective

effort is a considerable contribution to

social work scholarly publication activities. It

definitely contributes to the visibility of the

school.”

Haluk Soydan

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7said. “I feel incredibly grateful for this opportunity and Dr. Jansson’s belief in me. “I would also like to thank [associate

dean of research] Charles Kaplan, as well as Dr. [Michalle] Mor Barak and Dr. [Erick] Guerrero, the cochairs of the Management, Organizations, and Policy Transformations research cluster, for working hard to help establish this posi-tion. It is exciting to be able to contribute to the work going on in that cluster.”

Heidemann said she is not sure how this work will contribute to her future as a social work researcher or how Jansson’s donation will ultimately change her life.“Only time will tell,”

she said. “The position is allowing me to engage intellectually on both theoretical and real-world levels about solutions to our nation’s troubled health care system. I am gaining skills in writing grants for federal and private funding, enhancing my statistical skills in instrument devel-opment, and working collaboratively with an interdisciplinary and high-powered group of stake-holders. I can only imagine where these skills might take me in the future.”

Jansson said he is con-fident that Heidemann will achieve success in the future. “I have no doubt

that Gretchen will make major contribu-tions to research in coming years,” he said.

For the next few semesters, at least, Heidemann’s future involves continuing to work on two more proposals seeking PCORI funding for submission in the spring and summer, as well as additional grant proposals later in the summer, to expand the research team’s work on advo-cacy in health care settings. Heidemann said that more than anything, Jansson is inspiring her to think big.“I am so honored and grateful he asked

me to join him,” she said. “I honestly don’t know where I would be or what I would be doing if he had not secured this posi-tion for me.” t

“There was little time to conduct a thor-ough job search.”

Despite completing several job inter-views, Heidemann did not have anything lined up for her postdoctoral work until Jansson called her into his office and asked her to join his project.“I realized I needed her help in producing

data and articles from this grant in summer 2013, and I was delighted she was avail-able,” Jansson said. “I was also delighted to help subsidize her work on the project, where she has been instrumental.”

The research project involves surveying 300 nurses, social workers, and medical residents in eight acute-care hospitals in Los Angeles to examine the extent to which they engage in patient and policy advocacy to address such issues as patient ethical rights, cultur-ally competent care, and community-based care. Jansson said Heidemann directly contributed to the project by initiating articles based on project data and using that data to develop the first tools for measuring levels of engagement in advocacy efforts by health care professionals.

Heidemann also helped develop predictor vari-ables to gauge why some health profes-sionals engage in considerable advocacy on behalf of their patients and others do not. Her work continues to be a boon to the project in that she actively communicates with other project stakeholders and attends conferences to make presentations about their findings.

Although she said the USC School of Social Work chose her in a sense, Heidemann couldn’t be happier to have the opportunity to seamlessly transition from the doctoral program into a postdoctoral position at the university.“It is a stimulating environment, full of

endless opportunities to grow my social science research skills and networks,” she

HEIDEMANN | from page 6JOURNALS | from page 6

international journals becomes a public benefit,” he said. “There is a collective awareness of how these journals are run.”

Maiden echoed that sentiment, noting that because many members of the school’s faculty serve on editorial boards or as reviewers for leading journals, others affili-ated with the school often seek their advice about where to submit journal articles or how to boost their publication rate.

He also noted that the school and its journal holdings create a sort of feedback loop, with improvements in one being reflected in the other.“As we reframe and advance our cur-

riculum, it has a ripple effect that has also been beneficial,” he said. “It just ramps up the quality of the submissions and the volume of the submissions.”

As senior editor of the Journal of HIV/AIDS & Social Services, associate professor Helen Land has seen a similar effect on the repu-tation of the journal. Initially a small pub-lication with many qualitative articles, the journal has undergone a significant expan-sion in recent years, particularly after being acquired by the USC School of Social Work.“It has just taken off and become a higher-

impact journal,” Land said. “The submis-sion has gone way up; it’s probably tripled or quadrupled in the past year. People in all fields are submitting to the journal.”

Land was among a group of researchers concerned about the emergence of HIV/AIDS who developed the journal in the early 1990s, and she served as a consulting editor before being named senior editor last year. Aided by several coeditors at other institutions, she shepherds individual issues through the publication process and guides the overall direction of the publication.“In the past six months or so, we’ve

invited renowned investigators from across the country to join our editorial board,” she said. “It’s really brought the journal a lot of attention.”

Land and her colleagues who serve as journal editors are the final arbiters of the content that appears in the publications. They are responsible for selecting knowl-edgeable scholars to review the articles and making tough decisions about whether to accept or reject a submission.“Being a journal editor is a labor of love,”

Maiden said. “It’s a commitment to my own scholarship, and I think everyone who does this feels the same way.” t

“I was delighted to help subsidize her

work on the project. I have no doubt that Gretchen will make major contributions

to research in coming years.”

Bruce Jansson

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As the profession of social work becomes increasingly specialized and focused on clinical practices that help individuals and groups, two faculty members at the USC School of Social Work are hoping to bring renewed attention and energy to a wider perspective of the field.

A new book authored by clinical professor Murali Nair and assistant professor Erick Guerrero seeks to increase understanding of the higher-level forces that affect social work practice and impart proven strategies that help professionals work closely with commu-nities, agencies, and other complex entities.“There so many books on

evidence-based practice in clinical settings, working one-on-one or with fami-lies and groups,” Nair said.

“When it comes to com-munities and organizations, this is the first book on evidence-based practice.”

Evidence Based Macro Practice in Social Work features techniques and interventions focused on community organizing, planning, and management coupled with real-world case studies to illustrate those various approaches.

Guerrero said evidence-based strategies at the macro level are receiving too little attention despite their proven ability to improve the well-being of vulnerable populations. For example, community inter-ventions such as voucher programs to ensure equal housing opportunities have been quite successful.“There are some elegant

and rigorous methods and robust find-ings that there is evidentiary support for vouchers to improve the health and housing conditions for low-income indi-viduals,” he said.

Other management and organizational MACRO | continued on page 9

Book sheds light on social work in agencies and communities

practices also deserve wider dissemination, Guerrero said, citing as an example the challenge faced by social service agencies to organize their activities using a systematic and data-driven approach.“They get so caught up with the day-to-

day activities and are often in panic mode,” he said. “If they organize their activities in the sense that they collect data, set goals, and systematically evaluate how they are performing in relation to client outcomes, they are able to improve decision making, make successful changes, and become true

to their mission.”The book discusses

specific topics such as understanding organi-zational culture and cli-mate, empowering clients to advocate on their own behalf, and forming a con-sensus and involving indi-viduals in decision making.

Emphasizing system-atic and evidence-based approaches to these sorts of activities is critical for the profession of social work, which Nair said has been historically viewed as more of an art than a science.“Our discipline is still in

an infant stage,” he said. “It started only 110 years ago. Social work needs to build up its scientific basis to gain respect and attention.”

The authors said they tailored the book toward graduate students who are studying how to work with organizations, com-munities, and neighbor-hood groups. The book’s case studies, drawn from Nair’s decades of experi-

ence as an educator, are designed to draw in readers with vivid storytelling.“We intentionally wrote this book with

accessible language to be able to get at the first-year students who want to understand

“This book is about practice and the

authors have done a commendable job of identifying

empirical evidence that supports the efficacy

of the strategies and interventions

presented.”

Rino Patti

CONFERENCE | from page 4

nurturing the scientific identity among our doctoral students, and the use of intellectual communities to foster this identity.”

Both Mor Barak and Brekke have previ-ously represented USC’s School of Social Work as speakers at the SSWR confer-ence, including an opportunity for Brekke to present the prestigious Aaron Rosen lecture, a nominated position awarded to a member of the social work field who has accumulated a body of significant and innovative scholarship relevant to practice and the use of research to advance practice.

Also representing USC at this year’s con-ference was Krystal Hays, a student in the social work doctoral program who is affili-ated with the school’s USC Roybal Institute on Aging. Although Hays previously attended the conference, this was her first time leading a presentation. Hays presented her research on the help-seeking behavior of African Americans, specifically churchgoers, when faced with a personal problem.“African Americans tend to not seek help

for problems, and when they do, it is often from informal sources like the church,” said Hays. “This paper explored factors that might contribute to them going to see a professional, and this work helps inform the kinds of focus social workers need to have when encouraging mental health ser-vices for African Americans.”

Hays said the conference is a valuable experience and presented many opportuni-ties to meet and learn from others.“It’s great the school gives us the oppor-

tunity and support to go to SSWR,” said Hays. “More than anything, the networking opportunities are great, and attending the conference helped me think about my work in a different way. I attended sessions on topics similar to my interest, which inspired me to approach my topic differently.”

Flynn said she is pleased with the pres-ence of the school’s faculty and students at the annual gathering.“We have had outstanding participation

from our PhD students during the past two years, and faculty has been involved in the creation of new interest groups,” Flynn said. “Three of our senior faculty members have run for office on the board of direc-tors, and two have been elected. The only area where additional faculty participa-tion is needed relates to search committee activities, where greater faculty presence is urgently required.” t

9

“I haven’t lost my enthusiasm or interest. What I’m most concerned

about is we don’t have enough people doing research within

the social work profession and publishing in the journals that will

take action.”

Kathleen EllPh

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Hospital in St. Louis, Ell met her first patient, an older black woman with cancer who only had one living family member, an ill sister who could not visit. Ell visited her daily in the hospital’s basement ward for months, until she came to work one day and found an empty bed.“I was 23 years old—I ran off and I cried,”

she said. “But that experience only con-firmed who I was and what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it.”

After earning her master’s degree, Ell took a position in the coronary care unit at the LAC+USC Medical Center, where she noticed a link between heart disease, depression, and death. Physicians encour-aged her to pursue research on the topic and she eventually published one of the first studies linking depression and mor-tality among patients with heart problems, a finding that has since been extended to other chronic conditions.

In the following decades, she completed her doctorate in social work at UCLA, became the first social worker to receive research funding from the Los Angeles chapter of the American Heart Association, and led numerous clinical trials to test strategies to improve health and mental health care for low-income individuals, particularly those with racially and ethni-cally diverse backgrounds.

Now in her early 70s, Ell shows no sign of

“I haven’t lost my enthusiasm or interest,” she said. “What I’m most concerned about is we don’t have enough people doing research within the social work profes-sion and publishing in the journals that will take action. Yes, it’s fine to publish in social work journals, but I have learned that I have to get into leading medical journals because that’s where the impact comes from. Without influencing the medical profession, we aren’t going to be able to influence the health care system in this country.”

Several attendees at the award ceremony said Ell exemplified the ideals of the name-sakes of the award, Ruth Knee and Milton Wittman, two pioneering social work scholars who felt the profession needed to emphasize its traditions, accomplishments, and purpose. Friedner Wittman, Milton’s son, described Knee as a meticulous and determined researcher and said his father fiercely sought respect for social work com-pared to other mental health professions such as psychology and psychiatry.“He was an example of that sort of fire-in-

the-belly social worker who has a mission and sees what needs to happen, some warp in the human experience that needs fixing,” he said, adding that he sees many of those qualities in Ell. “The recipient today is an absolutely perfect example of why the Knee/Wittman Awards were put together and why it is so important to keep in mind why we are here and what it is we are doing.” t

slowing down. She recently received a $1.3 million award to explore whether commu-nity members trained to provide basic health information can help low-income, culturally diverse patients with chronic illnesses navi-gate the complex health care system.

ELL | from page 5

these concepts and theo-ries and who can see themselves working at a social service agency and enacting some of these practices,” Guerrero said.

Rino Patti, professor emeritus and former dean of the USC School of Social Work, said the book fills a significant need in the field for a framework that outlines the basic theoret-ical and practical approach of macro social work.“In the end, this book

is about practice and the authors have done a com-mendable job of identifying empirical evidence that supports the efficacy of the strategies and interventions presented,” he

MACRO | from page 8

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said in a review of the book. “There is as well a rich collection of cases that illustrate effective practice in diverse settings and

international contexts.”The two authors said they

each brought complemen-tary knowledge and skills to the book, which is available from Gregory Publishing and the USC bookstore.

Nair, a senior Fulbright scholar and cochair of the school’s community organization, planning, and administration con-centration, emphasized his extensive expertise in management approaches. Guerrero, cofounding director of the school’s management, organization, and policy transformation

research cluster, has a strong understanding of the latest research on macro social work practice in the 21st century. t

Murali Nair (left) and Erick Guerrero penned a new book on social work practices at the macro level.

10MOTHERS | from page 1

to treating depressive symptoms and improving parenting skills among mothers in Head Start. The federal program offers early childhood education and parenting support to low-income families to improve the school readiness of children between infancy and 5 years of age.

A recent federal study found that 52 percent of mothers in Early Head Start programs experience some form of depres-sion, a figure study leaders believe is similar among mothers involved in Head Start. Research has shown that persistent or untreated maternal depression interferes with the ability of mothers to be respon-sive, nurturing parents and ultimately leads to long-term adverse outcomes for children.“When mothers are depressed, their chil-

dren do less well in school and they are more likely to have trouble with aggres-sion. It affects their friendships and it affects their relationships with teachers,” said Todd Sosna, senior vice president for program evaluation and improvement at Children’s Institute, a nonprofit organiza-tion whose mission is to help children in Los Angeles County’s most challenged communities heal from the trauma of family and community violence, build the confidence and skills to break through the barriers of poverty, and grow up to lead healthy, productive lives.

Mennen said depression can also increase the likelihood of heart disease, chronic pain, and weight gain among mothers, in addi-tion to affecting their interpersonal rela-tionships with family members and friends. Those negative consequences spill over into the parenting domain, making mothers with depression more irritable and less able to address family issues.“Maternal depression has been related

to delayed acquisition of language, slower cognitive development in infants, more difficult temperament, and more external-izing of problems in children,” she said.

“Mothers who are depressed just tend to have more difficulty with parenting.”

Mennen and her research team will test whether interpersonal therapy (IPT) for groups reduces or eliminates those nega-tive effects. The intervention has been tested in randomized trials and shown to reduce postpartum depression, but has never been tested with mothers in Head Start programs.

Participants in IPT groups engage in

end up being very positive, Sosna said, improving self-esteem and providing more sources of social support that enhance their general well-being.

The intervention will be delivered to a randomized sample of 60 mothers in Head Start programs overseen by Children’s Institute; a separate group of 60 women receiving standard Head Start services will serve as a comparison sample. A national expert in IPT, Scott Stuart, will train mental health therapists to lead the sessions.“The advantage of the intervention is that

it is relatively short term, about 16 to 20 weeks,” Mennen said. “It is also a group intervention, which means it is low cost and we could possibly replicate it in other Head Start programs throughout the country.”

Head Start family support workers will screen all mothers entering Head Start during the initial stages of the study to locate potential participants. To be eligible, women must exhibit symptoms indicative of depression based on clinical cutoff points.

Testing for the full range of maternal depression is critical, Mennen said, because research has shown that even at low levels, depression can have negative effects.“Depression is on a continuum,” Sosna

added. “Some people have very severe and disabling depression, other people have sig-nificant depression but manage to go about much of their daily routine, and some people have milder forms of depression that still affect their patience or ability to interact with their children.”

By incorporating a standardized screening tool for depression, study leaders will not only be able to assess varying levels of maternal depression but also establish a better esti-mate of how many mothers in Head Start are affected by depressive disorders.

The therapy sessions will be held at selected Head Start centers on a weekly basis, and Sosna said Children’s Institute will provide dinner and child care to encourage regular participation by mothers.“One of the reasons parents who are

depressed don’t get services that might be available through other service providers or clinics is because there are logistical bar-riers, financial barriers, or child care bar-riers,” he said. “This is designed to be highly accessible, convenient, and engaging.”

The research team will follow mothers involved in the study and their children for two years to evaluate effects of group

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“Maternal depression has been related to delayed acquisition of language, slower cognitive development in infants, more

difficult temperament, and more externalizing of problems

in children. Mothers who are depressed just tend to have more

difficulty with parenting.”

Ferol Mennen

DEPRESSION | continued on page 11

discussions designed to help them under-stand and improve their relationships with important people in their lives, including partners, children, family members, coworkers, and friends. Role-playing exer-cises help them enhance their problem-solving and social communication skills.“When people are depressed, their hope-

fulness, their expectations of success, and their appraisal of their own skills and esteem are all diminished,” Sosna said. “They tend to isolate themselves from people in their lives and tend to think people don’t want to be around them or don’t like them. They have a hopeless, helpless, worthless kind of internal dialogue.”

IPT challenges how mothers with depression view themselves and helps par-ticipants embrace interactions with others. The negative responses they expected often

11TRAUMA | from page 3

DEPRESSION | from page 10

Through its Head Start program, Children’s Institute helps mothers learn about child development and connect with support services.

IPT over time, collecting data at five points in time to assess the intervention’s influence on issues such as maternal depression, parenting behav-iors, parental employment and housing, interpersonal rela-tionships, and child behavior and school readiness.

This study represents ongoing collaboration between Mennen and Children’s Institute, and responds to a request from the Administration for Children and Families for research projects with the potential to influence services provided to multiple generations through Head Start.“We have a very strong com-

mitment to research-informed and evidence-based practices,” Sosna said. “This opportunity felt like a very good fit and called for a collaborative part-nership with a research institute.”

In addition to working with Mennen on previous research projects, Sosna said the insti-tute has a long-standing rela-tionship with the USC School

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of Social Work by providing graduate internships, making it an easy decision to join forces to conduct the 5-year study.

Children’s Institute employs more than 100 therapists who are trained to deliver mental health services to clients in some of Southern California’s most vulnerable communities. In addition, the institute serves approximately 2,000 children each year through Head Start

programs. Funding from the grant will not support therapy services, however, but instead will support research activi-ties such as data collection and project management.

If the intervention proves effective at both reducing maternal depression and less-ening its effects on child devel-opment and behavior, study leaders plan to educate other Head Start and early childhood education providers. More than 1 million children are served by Head Start programs each year, Mennen noted, an indi-cation of the impact this study could have on the health and well-being of low-income and vulnerable families throughout the United States.“If this intervention is suc-

cessful, we will begin dissemi-nating it to other Head Start centers around the country,” she said, “and trying to convince them that one of the ways they can improve outcomes among their children is help mothers with depression.” t

to help and others argued that he shouldn’t have placed him-self in an unsafe situation.

As the debate grew increas-ingly contentious and people began arguing about whether white people were heroes or black people were making things worse, an older black woman stood up and brought the discussion to a halt.“My son is a police man, and

I’m terrified for him every day,” she said, according to Wong.

“It’s not about whether he’s black or white, it’s because he’s a police man. You have the luxury of talking about this in the abstract, but I live this every day.”

By humanizing the con-flict, Wong said, teachers and employees shed racial and polit-ical overtones and gained an understanding of how the riots had affected their coworkers.

That experience and many other crises she faced during her time with the school dis-trict helped Wong refine her ability to respond to disasters. She began to gain attention on the national scene, receiving invitations to speak at the White House and being asked to assist schools affected by vio-lence and natural disasters.“Those life experiences built

my capacity to do this work at another level,” she said. “That’s the beauty of social work. As you get older, you have more and more professional and life experiences that are integrated and that help you gain some sense of what is needed to improve the lives of others.”

She has since traveled across the world to speak about crisis inter-vention and the psychological effects of disasters and violence on children and adults. Most recently, she joined a humani-tarian mission organized by the USC School of Social Work in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, which killed thousands

WONG | continued on page 12

“When people are depressed, their

hopefulness, their expectations of success,

and their appraisal of their own skills and esteem are all

diminished. They have a hopeless, helpless,

worthless kind of internal dialogue.”

Todd Sosna

Hamovitch Center | 1149 South Hill Street, Suite 360 | Los Angeles, CA 90015USC School of Social Work | Montgomery Ross Fisher Building | 669 West 34th Street | Los Angeles, CA 90089

213.821.3628 | hrc@usc.edu | usc.edu/socialwork/research

Iris Chi, the Chinese-American Golden Age Association/Frances Wu Chair for the Chinese Elderly, has been elected to the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. She was formally inducted in a special ceremony held during the annual meeting of the Society for Social Work and Research. She joins fellow faculty members John Brekke, the Frances G. Larson Professor of Social Work Research, and Kathleen Ell, the Ernest P. Larson Professor of Health, Ethnicity, and Poverty, as a fellow of the highly selective society, which recognizes social work’s most prominent scholars.

William Vega, provost professor and executive director of the USC Roybal Institute on Aging, received the Rema Lapouse Award during the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association. The honor, granted each year to recognize excellence in psychiatric epidemiology, was conferred by the Mental Health, Epidemiology, and Applied Public Health Statistics Sections of the association following a unanimous vote. Vega also delivered the Rema Lapouse Lecture during the gathering.

A new book based on four decades of research on generational change has been published by Vern Bengtson, a research professor with the USC Roybal Institute on Aging.

“Families and Faith: How Religion is Passed Down across Generations,” authored by Bengtson and colleagues Norella Putney and Susan Harris, describes a study conducted with 350 families known as the Longitudinal Study of Generations, which began in 1971. The book describes whether faith changes across generational gaps, using data and interviews to paint a detailed portrait of reli-gion over time in American society. Ph

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Following a national election, assistant professor Jeremy Goldbach has been selected as a member-at-large on the board of directors of the Society for Social Work and Research, which seeks to advance, disseminate, and translate research that addresses issues of social work practice and policy. Goldbach joins Karen Lincoln, associate professor and associate director of the USC Roybal Institute on Aging, as a member of the board. To qualify for the position, nominees are expected to exhibit strong leadership, commitment to the organization and its mission, and expe-rience and stature as a researcher, among other attributes.

Suzanne Wenzel, professor and chair of the research council at the USC School of Social Work, has been invited to serve on the 2014 Graduate Research Fellowship Program panel of the National Science Foundation. The program is designed to sup-port graduate students specializing in science, technology, engi-neering, and mathematics at the master’s and doctoral level, and past fellows have included Nobel Prize winners and other promi-nent scholars. Applications for fellowships are reviewed by leading interdisciplinary scientists and engineers. Wenzel’s appointment reflects the increasing focus of the USC School of Social Work on expanding and strengthening its scientific orientation.

Doctoral student Mee Young Um received the Robert Keefe Social Work Section Student Award, which recognizes the best research abstract submitted by a student, during the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association. Her presen-tation focused on the effects of acculturation on the mental health outcomes of HIV-positive women.

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WONG | from page 11

and displaced millions in the Philippines.Wong’s colleague, clinical associate pro-

fessor Annalisa Enrile, had worked closely with organizations in the Philippines focused on combating child trafficking, and reached out to see if they needed help.“They realized that children were more at

risk than ever, especially children who were orphaned by the storm, and that they didn’t know enough about disaster recovery to even know where to start,” Wong said. “We wanted to bring our expertise in disaster response and recovery, community orga-nizing, and bringing people together to rebuild and rethink their mission and goals.”

In addition to Enrile’s connections, the USC delegation leveraged the knowl-edge of clinical assistant professor Vivien Villaverde, a native of the Philippines who

knew teachers, doctors, and health care workers in the community. By the time they arrived, they had attracted the atten-tion of many involved in the recovery effort, including the acting ambassador of the U.S. embassy, the United Nations disaster response team, and the head of USAID for Southeast Asia.

After being briefed on the situation by those officials, the USC group offered guid-ance to nearly 90 individuals on topics such

as the phases of disaster recovery, the needs of specific groups such as older adults and orphaned children, and the increased risk of child abuse. Wong described a variety of psychosocial services, including an intervention she helped develop known as Listen, Protect, Connect, which is designed for people without mental health training.

Wong plans to return to train others as the recovery progresses, including teachers and social workers, and is hoping to develop an immersion program for students to offer support and help rebuild the community.

As she reflected on her long and suc-cessful career dedicated to improving the lives of others, Wong returned again to the indelible influence of her grandmother.“She would be proud,” she said. “I feel so

lucky, so fortunate to have these experi-ences and this life.” t

Marleen Wong has offered her expertise in crisis response

following terrorist attacks, natural disasters, and school shootings

across the globe.